DIY Projects

There are simply too many white lights in and around a municipal anchorage. A required white anchor light must have 360-degree visibility. But a white light at the tip of a mast can get lost in the stars or a background of city lights, making it a poor marker for a sailboat 60 feet below. Also, a light in the sky is not in the normal plane of view of other small vessels maneuvering in an anchorage. An additional white light on a stern arch is a better marker, but it also can become camouflaged by city lights onshore and will be obscured, by a small degree, by the mast. But Inland and International Rules state in part no other lights shall be exhibited, except such lights as cannot be mistaken for the lights specified in the Rules, which makes the growing use of LED flashing blue or white lights and non-flashing red, green, and pink lights illegal to use as anchor or on-deck lights. Such lights are easily confused for lighted buoys, channel markers, lighthouses, or police boats.

While new finishes-paint, epoxy, or varnish-may be beautiful to look at, they are also as slick as can be when a little seawater hits the surface. You can cover your handiwork with nonskid tape; slather on a coat of bland nonskid paint; try one of the nonskid paint additives like crushed walnut shells (favored by PS Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo); or you can try an easy, age-old method that PS tester Drew Frye favors: salted varnish (or paint).

For this comparison of synthetic teak options, our first concern was ease of installation. The manufacturer typically carries out the hardest part-welding the panels together to achieve the correct dimensions. The ease of gluing our test panels to a simulated fiberglass deck was similar for all five test products. The difficulty of your own project will depend on how much work the manufacturer does in terms of measuring, assembling, and fitting the panels.

Fueling a boat has never been as easy as fueling a car. Spills-exacerbated by poorly designed fill pipes and vents-are common. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has updated the fill and vent requirements on boats to prevent these spills, but they only apply to new gasoline-powered boats. New jerry cans designed to prevent spills and comply with new emission standards arent making things easier. Most are hard to control and slow during filling, spill prone, and break after limited use.

Most boat owners regard their boat as a living, breathing thing, but when real living things-especially the microscopic variety-move aboard and start occupying large swaths of damp real estate, its time to draw the line. Weve done a series of reports on mildew in past articles, but those black spots on the deck, lines, and canvas probably arent mildew. Mildew and mold require darkness, and even the shaded areas on deck are too well lit. Those spots are more likely black algae and lichens, the latter a symbiotic combination of algae and fungus.

Some ports and anchorages are safer than others, but it never hurts to be cautious when it comes to boat security. When youre away from the boat, blasting a loud stereo down below can give the appearance that someone is onboard and may slow a prospective thief. (Doesnt everyone turn radios and TVs off when they leave?) Trailing a spare dinghy or kayak off the stern is also a good deterrent, as is on-deck illumination.

Leave water from any source in a storage tank for a while, and interesting things will start to grow. Only the purest water in an airtight bottle will have a long shelf life. But not all bottled water is what the label says it is. For a cruiser, there are two water-testing tools that are important, and a third tool that is helpful in determining what is going into a tank and managing the quality of fresh water on a long-range cruising boat.

With a little imagination and some inexpensive materials, you can put together a leakproof mast boot in a few hours. 1. Roofing Rubber One reliable boot sealer is self-adhesive ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM), a common rubber-membrane roofing material. Sold at local building supply stores, the rubber is black in color and comes in a roll that is 5 inches wide. (Dont confuse it with ice and water shield, which is much thinner.) Peeling the plastic backing from the underside of the EPDM material exposes the sticky side. Arrange precut strips prior to permanent installation. We suggest using American-made products as the imported stuff doesn't adhere well to itself.

After a brief-and for testers, much needed-hiatus from testing wood finishes, we recently launched a new long-term evaluation of exterior wood coatings. Our last round of tests, a two-year death match, wrapped up in 2011. Although the test field this go-around is smaller than the previous tests lineup, it includes some new products and some that have been reformulated since the last long-term test began in 2007.

For those of you unfamiliar with Baja fuel filters, they are multi-layer strainers, purchased or handmade, used to filter diesel fuel of dubious pedigree before loading. Water, whether from a dockside hose or rainwater, presents a similar challenge. Weve been exploring freshwater filtration possibilities for a series of articles to come, and while there are great pre-filtration products out there, none offer the versatility of our own home-grown solution, which we call the Baja water filter.